My Fractured Life

A Fractured Life, a true story, reveals Jane's childhood of loneliness, hunger, isolation, shame, and abandonment. When her mother died instantly and unexpectedly, six-year-old Jane was left in the care of her drunken and disinterested father. Without proper guidance, this child put herself in a dangerous situation, narrowly escaping a gang rape. Without supervision, she broke laws, which could have resulted in juvenile detention. Without love, she yearned for a new mother, only to struggle with a stepmother who was mentally ill. Without fear, she lived on her own through three years of high school, while excelling academically and socially. Jane traveled difficult and hazardous roads through childhood and adolescence in her hometown of Paducah, Kentucky. Though she did not recognize it as a child, God's daily presence protected her and provided her needs, leading her to a beautiful destination in adulthood. Through her memoir, you will learn to examine your daily life, seeing God's presence in every step you take. Your eyes will be opened to powerful blessings occurring in your life--right now, today. Discussion thoughts at the end of the book are excellent resources for book clubs or Bible classes.

Abandoned by her parents as a three-year-old, and ultimately leaving her home country India for a new life in America as a young mother of a three-year-old son, this is not only an immigrant's story, but a poignant and powerful memoir that is at first, one of sadness and continuing adversity, but ultimately one of strength, purpose, and the universal triumph of hope. It is a story of dislocation, disruption, and despair, and brings focus to the silencing of girlhood and womanhood and how with time, love, and support we can work our way out of that silence. Shabnam Samuel was twenty-seven when she moved to the US, carrying with her a troubled marriage, an almost estranged husband, and a three-year-old son. Hoping to create a fresh start from everything that was holding her down, it took Shabnam twenty-five years of trials and tribulations to finally find her voice, her strength, and her place in this world.

In 1989, Robert B. Oxnam, the successful China scholar and president of the Asia Society, faced up to what he thought was his biggest personal challenge: alcoholism. But this dependency masked a problem far more serious: Multiple Personality Disorder. At the peak of his professional career, after having led the Asia Society for nearly a decade, Oxnam was haunted by periodic blackouts and episodic rages. After his family and friends intervened, Oxnam received help from a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Smith, and entered a rehab center. It wasn't until 1990 during a session with Dr. Smith that the first of Oxnam's eleven alternate personalities--an angry young boy named Tommy--suddenly emerged. With Dr. Smith's help, Oxnam began the exhausting and fascinating process of uncovering his many personalities and the childhood trauma that caused his condition. This is the powerful and moving story of one person's struggle with this terrifying illness. The book includes an epilogue by Dr. Smith in which he describes Robert's case, the treatment, and the nature of multiple personality disorder. Robert's courage in facing his situation and overcoming his painful past makes for a dramatic and inspiring book.

Damaged. Broken. Destroyed. I’ve heard it all. A single moment of trusting the wrong person shattered my life into pieces, and my family has never looked at me the same. It’s impossible to convince them that I’m anything more than the broken girl they rescued all those years ago. Until I meet him. Ramsey’s grumpy demeanor and menacing scowl scare most of the world away. But not me. Not when I’ve seen his gentle hands soothe an abused colt or comfort a terrified mare. And when I finally get up the courage to strike out on my own, Ramsey’s there. Roommates felt like such a safe proposition until Ramsey’s lingering touches and wicked smile light a fire in me I don’t think will ever be extinguished. And he feels it, too… But just as my new life begins to take root, an evil from my past emerges from the shadows, casting a darkness on my newfound freedom. And this time, they won’t settle for pieces of me. They want everything…

The life of 3743 is a journey, beginning with tragedy, addiction and culminating in redemption born out of desperation. Rob Cabitto's story of his fractured life being redeemed is a powerful and cautionary tale of how a life can go horribly wrong. When Rob was five, he was put up for adoption because of the severe addictions of his parents. As is often the case, these early hardships helped to make the man who he is today. Rob tells what it was like to live untethered to any spiritual, tribal or social belief system—and the consequences associated with an amoral lifestyle. He describes exactly what it was like to be homeless, penniless and jobless, with nowhere to go but down. However, what he believed to be his bottom was only a temporary stopping point. He had yet to fall further, and for many years, lived in the abyss of a life without meaning or direction. This story is about overcoming immense obstacles as a child, the bad choices he made as a young adult and into adulthood, and the resilience of the human spirit. A Fractured Life Redeemed is insightful, captivating and has a universal message for all those who have been hopeless or lost—and that message is hope...

When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: the old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief. In Fracture, critically acclaimed historian Philipp Blom argues that in the aftermath of the First World War, citizens of the West directed their energies inwards, launching into hedonistic, aesthetic and intellectual adventures of self-discovery. It was a period of both bitter disillusionment and visionary progress. From Surrealism to Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West; from Fritz Lang's Metropolis to theoretical physics, and from Art Deco to Jazz and the Charleston dance, artists, scientists and philosophers grappled with the question of how to live and what to believe in a broken age. Morbid symptoms emerged simultaneously from the decay of the First World War: progress and innovation were everywhere met with increasing racism and xenophobia. America closed its borders to European refugees and turned away from the desperate poverty caused by the Great Depression. On both sides of the Atlantic, disenchanted voters flocked to Communism and fascism, forming political parties based on violence and revenge that presaged the horror of a new World War. Vividly recreating this era of unparalleled ambition, artistry and innovation, Blom captures the seismic shifts that defined the interwar period and continue to shape our world today.

Fractured Lives is a memoir of one woman's experiences as a documentary filmmaker covering the wars in southern Africa during the 1980s and 1990s. Part autobiography, part history, part social commentary and part war story, it offers a female perspective on a traditionally male subject. Growing up in South Africa in a politically active family, Toni went to Britain as an exile in 1965 in the wake of the famous Rivonia Trial, and in the years to follow, became a filmmaker. Despite constant difficulties fighting for funding and commissions from television broadcasters, and the prejudices of working in a male-dominated industry, Toni made several remarkable films in Mozambique and Angola. These bear witness to the silent victims of war, particularly the women and children. Fractured Lives paints the changing landscape of southern Africa: Namibian independence and the end of the war in Mozambique bring hope - but also despondency. Yet there is also the possibility of redemption, of building new lives for the victims of war. In its final chapters, Fractured Lives traces the power of survival and the opportunities for new beginnings. Fractured Lives concludes with Toni's return to South Africa after nearly three decades in exile. However, the joy following the demise of apartheid is tempered by the poignancy of returning to a place that for so long had existed in her dreams alone and the realization that home will forever lie somewhere else.